Phone tracking while at university

[Fenimore]

Astonished that so many parents I know are tracking their kids by phone. These are 18/19 year olds. I guess the young people don’t mind or they’d turn off the tracking. I just don’t think it’s healthy.

One parent I know is checking every day to see if their son is at lectures as well as what time he’s home from a night out.

i don’t track DD. One, she really wouldn’t like it and two, I think it would be stressful as well as being an invasion of privacy.

Does anyone do this?

But why would you even know that she’s on a night out in the first place?!

And if she is, what if she decides she’s going to stay out all night, or crashes on a mate’s sofa, or has a date and goes back to his place? Do you phone her to ask her what’s going on? Because it would be pretty intrusive to have your mum calling you to ask why you weren’t back at your halls every time you stayed out spontaneously.

I’ve never tracked my children. They are 18 and 20 now, one still at home and one in university. I don’t have Snapchat either and nor does eldest.
It didn’t occur to me to do this, I understand why it might feel safer, I do sometimes wait up if dd1 is walking home as she will call me en route and/or call when she is back in her room. I think tracking is fine if everyone is happy with it, it’s when someone is unaware of being tracked that it is a bad thing.

My DH and I share location. I use it to know when to turn the oven on.

Nope. Still weird. Just ring him and ask what time to put dinner on for. Or wait until he gets home. Does he never stop off anywhere on the way back (to see his parents, for a quick pint at the pub, to pick up something from the supermarket)?

If I tracked DH and saw he was 15-20 minutes away it would mean nothing. He might have arranged to pop in to see a mate down the road for a quick brew or have to go and see a client locally (he works in the trades so a lot of his business is in our local area and he often drops in to look at a job at the end of the day).

The fact people think it's normal these days is even more worrying.

What utter nonsense. Tracking people (or just being fucking nosey) doesn't prevent anything, it just tells you where people are when it happened.

The world is no more a scary place in 2025 than 1990, you just get to choose whether you want to read the detail of every single crime if you so wish.

Why do you need to check before you call? Just call, if it's not convenient, she won't answer. She might be at home, but busy anyway.

Why care what other people do?

Total non issue provided consent is given.

you are allowed to say "raped" on here

Exactly! All of these justifications for tracking are hilarious (but actually a bit creepy).

"Oh I find it really helpful to know my daughter is home before I ring her".

How do you know she's not 2 hours into a marathon shagfest with her boyfriend?! How do you know she isn't revising or trying to concentrate on something important? How do you know she isn't having a heart to heart with her housemate who has been dumped?

Just because someone is in a certain location it means nothing!! Just fucking ring her and if she's free, she'll answer!

If being tracked- if they said they were somewhere it going somewhere and in completely different place abd not responding at all stupid hour my alarm bells would ring. None of you are street wise. It really shows lol

That's the truth of it though isn't it. It isn't about keeping them safe as if they are being raped or murdered you can't do anything in time to save them. It is so parents aren't worrying and if that is the arrangement fair enough but it isn't being honest to say it being done for the benefit of the adult son/daughter, it is for that benefit of the parent.

Mobile phones didn't exist when I was that age, but if they had, and my parents were tracking me, I would simply have left my phone in my study room, bought a cheap phone to carry with me just in case, and carried right on doing whatever it was that I didn't want my parents to know about!

How ridiculous of those parents!

When my eldest daughter went to uni in 2013 one of the young men on her corridor had parents who I can well imagine might have done this if they could have. They used to phone him at 10pm every night to tell him that it was bedtime now, to say goodnight and to make clear that they expected him to be tucking himself into bed and going to sleep now.

DD told us about this boy. Phone tracking wasn't as prevalent then as it is now, which was probably just as well for him, so he just used to speak to them in his room before going out to join the rest of them at the Students Union for drinks and partying.

From what you say, I now have an image in my head of a student's parents trying to get security sent over to the union to seek out said student and go and put them to bed. 🤣🤣 Utterly ridiculous. Would these parents have driven down and turned up at the uni if told that this couldn't/wouldn't be done? Some could be stupid enough!

So what happens then? You set out to find them, you call the police. I don't understand what would happen if say DD said she was going to Weatherspoons and you looked at tracking and she'd gone to a club. So your alarm bells are going and what next?

but if they are at uni, you won't know where they are or if they changed their mind or what? ....or do you expect to be given a daily itinerary?

Um, I don't think you understand the absolute irony of what you have posted @omgno222 😂

We are all extremely streetwise BECAUSE we weren't tracked and monitored 24/7 with our parents following our every move.

Or he could have just left his phone in his room and gone out knowing his parents could track his phone but not track him.

Not the OP, but I don’t think that’s what she’s saying - it’s not a case of spoons vs being in a club…it would be ‘out for drinks’ vs showing as being in a wooded area in the middle of the night that would cause alarm bells.

He probably would have done that. I know I might have, as would my DDs, potentially. Tracking isn't foolproof, though some people seem to think it is.

So her and her boyfriend have gone off for a walk. Again what happens next, you call the police and say my 18 year old DD is in the woods and she was supposed to be in the pub? Even if the police decided to investigate, not likely, the rape would probably have happened before she got there. Nice if the police support her but it isn't keeping her safe is it. The idea that having a phone that your mother is tracking keeps you safe is just misleading and if anything could end up with kids being less cautious and more likely to get into a difficult situation.

My mantra to DD when off to uni was you stick with your friends, if one has too much to drink you all look after them and you look after each other. I think that was better than me sitting glued to some tracking system.

They have no idea where their young person is… they can simply see where the phone is.

Exactly. Of course mum could be sitting looking at DDs location thinking well she's in her room at uni all safe and the reality is there's an intruder in the room.

DD has hers turned on and actively chose to share it with me in case of emergency. It was particularly useful on her gap year whilst she was doing solo travel. I definitely don’t stalk her on a daily basis!

On the other hand her best friend’s mum seems to stalk her DD’s every move on it - constantly asking questions etc. I feel that this is a massive invasion of privacy and there’s no way my own DD would tolerate this! I find it a bit creepy to be honest.

I think it gets normalised in early teens for some teens and parents.

I do think it's very odd.

Having said that did it once as DD1 asked us to - she went ahead to pick up keys and get into second year flat while we lingered in hotel rather than clutter up with suitcases in lobby- we left and got a taxi when she was in the new building. So she did paper work and had look round first while we arrived soon after with the heavy cases. It was via snap chat and disabled after but was a useful tool.

I'd have hated it to exits when I was at uni - as I'd have had constant questions about what I was up to and been told to do other things.

My kids just commute from home.

Good on you for being lucky and healthy.

LOL.

Like everyone at university, I also had flu and various other ailments. When I had flu, my friends in halls got me paracetamol. I didn’t die of dehydration because despite feeling like utter death and being in bed for several days, I was capable of dragging myself to the bathroom where there were taps - as I assume you also were, unless you were shitting and pissing the bed for three days.

On one of those trips to the bathroom I suspect I probably called my mum and dad from the pay phone on the corridor and told them I had flu, but I can’t remember. Either way, not sure how tracking my phone would have been useful. My parents would have seen I’d not left halls for a few days, which would have been unexceptional because I didn’t have lectures every day and my hall had a refectory and a bar.

I also had food poisoning at university and was in hospital for two days. My parents tracking my phone wouldn’t have prevented that or made it possible for them to do anything to help me. The hospital would have called them if necessary. I think I just called and told them what had happened when I was discharged though - again, I can’t remember.

Essentially, knowing where your adult child is doesn’t actually keep them safe and well. Bad things will happen whether you know where they are or not.

It might give you peace of mind at times, but personally I think parents have to sacrifice that for the sake of their adult children’s privacy, maturity and independence. Being anxious about your adult kids doesn’t entitle you to be intrusive or clingy.